Right now I am in Dubai, waiting for my connecting flight to the US, it seems a wonderful time to continue the discussion we began last time on growing in grace, revealing Christ and enjoying life, as an aside every time I pass through Dubai I can’t help but wonder at what the human mind can conceive and realize if it sets its mind to it.
A few decades ago Dubai was just a huge pile of dirt, but with vision and resources, over time, it has been transformed into one of the most modern destinations in our present world. The lesson; with vision, time and work every ‘pile of dirt’ can become something beautiful if we set our minds to it.
As Christians our lives are somewhat like this huge pile of dirt but as we receive God’s vision and pursue them with his unlimited resources and with the help of time and diligent labor our pile of dirt is transformed into something that glorifies God.
In fact this is what this our discussion aims at, without a vision of the life that we have received through Christ and its immense possibilities we will be stuck with a huge pile of religious dirt when we could have built (with God’s help) something that looking back at would have glorified God in the spirit.
The vision of Christ
If we are going to grow in grace, reveal Christ and enjoy life, we must possess God’s vision of the Christ life we have received with its immense possibilities, I believe that if it were physically possible to gather all the scriptures on the new creation realities and mold them into flesh and blood, breathing life into them, the human being that would be formed would function EXACTLY as Jesus did.
Paul the apostle said by the spirit, that it as we look into the mirror (the word of God) and behold the image of Jesus that we are transformed by the Spirit into that same image.( 2 Cor. 3:18) In other words the transformation or metamorphosis takes place AS we receive a vision of Christ, it is that vision or revelation that the Holy Spirit works out of our lives through the word of God and circumstances, trials, opportunities etc that life will bring. In other words without a personal revelation of Jesus there is no material for the Holy Spirit to work with, now you understand why Jesus asked his disciples whom do people say that I am?
Most Christian people have no such revelation, we just want to be good Christians, succeed in life and go to heaven when we die, that is utter failure in the sight of God, God’s vision is captured in Romans chapter 8 and it is that we are transformed into the image of his son.
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Rom 8:29-30 NKJV
Dubai is a dream created in the hearts of men and worked out by men using human resources, but we are God’s dream, his work of art as the Apostle puts it, God cannot work out His dream without us, his dream for sons of God which he so clearly expressed in Genesis 1:26
Let us make man in our own image and after our own likeness….
God has made the resources available to make this dream come to pass and these resources are locked up in the person of Jesus and released through your vision of Him (Jesus)
Okay, so how can we catch the vision of Jesus?
Prayer is a huge part of it but I don’t mean the Holy Ghost fire type, I mean asking the Father to reveal his son to you, remember Jesus said no one knows him but the father and whosoever the father reveals him to, to buttress this read what Jesus said in the following scriptures
When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”
So they said,”Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered and said,”You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.
Matt 16:13-20 NKJV
I can tell somebody about Jesus, we do that all the time, but only the Father by the Spirit can give a revelation of Jesus, of course the heart condition of the individual is very important, God does not force revelation on people, they have to desire and believe. Remember that Jesus said in the parable of the sower, the one who brings forth fruit is the one who with a HONEST and GOOD heart hears and keeps the word.( Luke 8:15)
Unless we have revelation of Jesus in our hearts all our confession of the new creation realities will not produce the intended effect.
Can we pray?
Father in the name of Jesus, we thank you for the gift of your Son and the Life that has come to us through him, we thank you for you have desired to work out that life in us in all its fullness, today we ask that by your Holy Spirit you will give us a fresh revelation of Jesus, cause this revelation to fill our hearts until we are transformed into what we see in our hearts to your glory and praise. Amen
To be continued.
jesushealsthesick 